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How Google Chrome’s ad blocker works

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Re: How Google Chrome’s ad blocker works

#121

Post by IncRnd »

rmrfrmrf wrote: post #21
rocqua wrote: post #14

How will this not lead to google strangling their competitors. Are we really going to have to just trust them to use this fairly? Will we really expect google to interpret the Better Ads Standard without any bias, treating their own ads equally to other ads? Maybe they will be good, but I for one am not comfortable with this. Imagine what happens when chrome decides Facebook ads deserve to be blocked.

According to the article, this is more about google's competitors strangling them (by being so intrusive that customers consider full ad blockers to be necessary).

Google is far from being strangled, making around $100B in income. The bulk of that income comes from AdWords. AdWords are ads.

Re: How Google Chrome’s ad blocker works

#122

Post by manigandham »

This is 100% about reinforcing Google's ad monopoly (along with the AMP initiative).

Google owns DoubleClick which is the biggest adserver on the planet and the #1 source of all the bad intrusive ads in the first place. This could've been easily solved years ago.

Re: How Google Chrome’s ad blocker works

#123

Post by IncRnd »

534b44a wrote: post #72

I long for the day Google asks you to disable your adblocker (uBlock, ABP, etc.) to be able to search.

> I long for the day Google asks you to disable your adblocker (uBlock, ABP, etc.) to be able to search.

That will be the day when fewer people search using Google, and someone will come up with noadoogle.

Re: How Google Chrome’s ad blocker works

#124

Post by fauigerzigerk »

mabbo wrote: post #89

I think there's good intentions by Google here. That said, let's talk about the worst-case scenario, the thing that Google could actually do that is entirely anti-competitive. Step 1: Google finds a large number of competitors who are doing pretty well playing by their rules. Google finds some trait they all have in common. Google then modifies their own ads to not have that trait. Step 2: Google declares the given t…

That's a valid concern, but it's also a very obvious one, and Google already being in the crosshairs of regulators will certainly be aware of it.

They are clearly prepared to counter any such allegation in two ways.

1) It's not Google alone setting the standard. The "coalition for better ads" also includes Facebook, Microsoft and many others: https://www.betterads.org/members/

2) The rules are few and reasonably simple: https://www.betterads.org/standards/

The combination of these two facts doesn't make it easy to pursue a strategy like the one you laid out. So I think this is sincere and can work to some degree.

BUT, the rules are insufficient! They don't ban animations. For me, anything that moves is a huge distraction especially next to or right in the middle of longer text.

Another extremely annoying thing is never ending layout changes. Pages keep jumping up and down because ads are being inserted and moved around all the time.

In other words, what this standard doesn't mandate is to keep the page still. That's why I like the reader mode in browsers that have one, such as Firefox and Safari.

Re: How Google Chrome’s ad blocker works

#125

Post by dhimes »

drngdds wrote: post #103
mabbo wrote: post #89

I think there's good intentions by Google here. That said, let's talk about the worst-case scenario, the thing that Google could actually do that is entirely anti-competitive. Step 1: Google finds a large number of competitors who are doing pretty well playing by their rules. Google finds some trait they all have in common. Google then modifies their own ads to not have that trait. Step 2: Google declares the given t…

I feel like there's a simpler explanation that's still not 'good intentions': 1. Lots of people are using adblockers to block all ads, including Google's, and they don't like that. 2. People mostly install adblockers to block really annoying ads.* 3. By building in an adblocker that blocks annoying ads, people will stop installing full adblockers that also block Google's ads. *There are real issues with non-annoying…

This is the explanation they give in the post.

Re: How Google Chrome’s ad blocker works

#127

Post by dhimes »

wjnc wrote: post #117
mabbo wrote: post #89

I think there's good intentions by Google here. That said, let's talk about the worst-case scenario, the thing that Google could actually do that is entirely anti-competitive. Step 1: Google finds a large number of competitors who are doing pretty well playing by their rules. Google finds some trait they all have in common. Google then modifies their own ads to not have that trait. Step 2: Google declares the given t…

Step 2, if taken anti-competetively would end up in tens of billions of dollars in fines and possibly the break-up of the company. I don't find it that unlikely, all things considered, but it should be the nail in the coffin.

I think you are overly optimistic in the willingness and ability of our governments to protect us from privacy invasion. They seem much more willing to protected us from seeing naked people.

Re: How Google Chrome’s ad blocker works

#128

Post by pfg »

ams6110 wrote: post #112

Slightly tangential, but: > ... Google Safe Browsing service. Chrome checks every website you visit against a list of malicious websites that it periodically downloads from Safe Browsing. So I have always disabled Safe Browsing because I assumed it was sending all my browsing activity to Google in real time to be checked. But this sounds like it's checking locally from a downloaded list. Anyone know if that's correct…

Safe Browsing is implemented in a fairly privacy-preserving way. The block list is downloaded periodically and sites are checked against this list locally. The only time most browsers implementing Safe Browsing will share potentially privacy-sensitive data is when you download executable files and when you actually encounter a site included in the block list (in order to double-check whether the site has since been removed).

Documentation for the Safe Browsing implementation in Firefox can be found here[1].

[1]: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-does-phishing-and-m...

Re: How Google Chrome’s ad blocker works

#129

Post by dhimes »

bostik wrote: post #94
rmrfrmrf wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the article, this is more about google's competitors strangling them (by being so intrusive that customers consider full ad blockers to be necessary).

Credit where it's due - they're right. Full ad blockers are necessary.

And I don't expect this to change that, frankly. They say nothing about blocking the trackers, and that's what needs to be blocked.

Re: How Google Chrome’s ad blocker works

#130

Post by rahoulb »

drngdds wrote: post #103
mabbo wrote: post #89

I think there's good intentions by Google here. That said, let's talk about the worst-case scenario, the thing that Google could actually do that is entirely anti-competitive. Step 1: Google finds a large number of competitors who are doing pretty well playing by their rules. Google finds some trait they all have in common. Google then modifies their own ads to not have that trait. Step 2: Google declares the given t…

I feel like there's a simpler explanation that's still not 'good intentions': 1. Lots of people are using adblockers to block all ads, including Google's, and they don't like that. 2. People mostly install adblockers to block really annoying ads.* 3. By building in an adblocker that blocks annoying ads, people will stop installing full adblockers that also block Google's ads. *There are real issues with non-annoying…

> There are real issues with non-annoying ads, like tracking, but I don't think most people know or care very much about that.

I speak to a lot of people who find "retargeting" deeply creepy. The awareness of the problem is there. However, they don't understand what causes it, how it works or that it's even possible to stop it.

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